A controversy has broken out over an investigation of the Goldstone Report published last week in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The main revelation was that Justice Richard Goldstone, as a judge during the height of the apartheid regime, approved sending 28 black defendants to the gallows. As the newspaper noted, Goldstone should “look long and hard in the mirror and to do some soul-searching before he rushes to criticize others.” Goldstone, the investigation claimed, took part in some of the most indefensible actions of what it called “one of the cruelest regimes of the 20th Century.”

Readers of this blog know that PJM previously reported, as Jennifer Rubin noted at Commentary’s “Contentions” blog, that we spotted “Goldstone’s apartheid record a few months back.” If you follow the link to her citation, you will find my old column and the link to documented reports that show more evidence of Goldstone’s actions in support of apartheid. In particular, the lengthy article by Ayal Rosenberg, who knew Goldstone, contains further revelations about his sorry record as a judge.

Goldstone’s record should be harder to ignore now that one of Israel’s major papers has spoken out. So far, there have been two kinds of takes on this. Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic is among those who believe the new information compromises Goldstone’s record. Goldberg responded: “Obviously, [Goldstone] was comfortable enforcing the death penalty — and torture penalties — on behalf of a racist state. Perhaps he reformed the system in ways he has not explained, but I’m reasonably sure the four men he ordered whipped did not think of him as a great reformer.” And Alan Dershowitz forcefully hit Goldstone head on with his column:

Goldstone was — quite literally — a hanging judge. He imposed and affirmed death sentences for more than two dozen blacks under circumstances where whites would almost certainly have escaped the noose. And he affirmed sentences of physical torture — euphemistically called “flogging” — for other blacks. He also enforced miscegenation and other racist laws with nary a word of criticism or dissent. He was an important part of the machinery of death, torture and racial subjugation that characterized Apartheid South Africa. His robe and gavel lent an air of legitimacy to an entirely illegitimate and barbaric regime.

Dershowitz also points out that Goldstone consciously hid his past from colleagues. He writes:

I recall him at the lunch and dinner tables in Cambridge describing himself as a heroic part of the struggle against Apartheid. Now it turns out he was the ugly face of Apartheid, covering its sins and crimes with a judicial robe. How differently we would have looked at him if we knew that he had climbed the judicial ladder on whipped backs and hanged bodies.

Others, like Jonathan Chait at the New Republic, don’t think the verdict is so clear cut. Chait writes that “it’s morally murky territory — the ultimate question is whether and to what degree a white South African could take a position such as a judge for a regime that had such despicable laws. I don’t think the answer is clear.” He adds a few days later that many human rights groups “attract a lot of individuals who take a deeply unfriendly view of Israel. Thus the Goldstone Report, while raising some very valid criticisms of Israel’s misguided assault on Gaza, also makes a lot of misleading claims.” On the other hand, Goldstone’s defenders have reacted in predictable ways.

First, we have comments from Matthew Yglesias, who says that he’s “inclined to give [Goldstone] a pass.” Why? Because the African National Congress (ANC) “always seemed to regard Goldstone as credible.”

Is that surprising? As soon as the situation began to shift, and it was clear apartheid was about to fall and the ANC win, Goldstone shifted his stance and suddenly became an ANC partisan — also ruling against its opponents who wanted to expose the ANC’s own reign of torture against would-be dissidents. The ANC, as one should acknowledge, was in a firm alliance not only with the Stalinist South African Communist Party, but was aligned with the major totalitarian enemies of the West — including Libya, the Soviet Union, Cuba — you can name all the rest. If one even raised the issue of the human rights abuses of these regimes, ANC spokesmen would say “that is an internal matter and a violation of the sovereignty of socialist states.” This from the same people who asked for international boycotts against the government of South Africa.

Yglesias claims, incorrectly, that the Goldstone Report criticizes both Israel and the Palestinians for their conduct when they are wrong — which of course, is precisely what the Goldstone Report does not do. Its criticism is addressed exclusively to Israel, and it lets Hamas off the hook for its very documented war crimes. Yglesias writes that “the simple fact of the matter is that adhering to international humanitarian law makes it very difficult to wage war, which I think is a good thing but many people disagree with that. This is an important debate, but it actually has nothing to do with anti-Israel bias or Goldstone’s alleged status as an amoral comformist.” This is quite simply meaningless balderdash. Those who defend international law do not necessarily oppose the fighting of war; they fully realize that sometimes war is necessary to defend justice and to attain real peace. And Goldstone is not “amoral,” but more accurately, immoral. This is what Yglesias does not comprehend.

But if Yglesias does not understand the issues, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, a senior editor of Foreign Affairs, writing on the website of Foreign Policy, has a more foolish apologia:

Goldstone’s apartheid-era judicial rulings are undoubtedly a blot on his record, but his critics never mention the crucial part he played in shepherding South Africa through its democratic transition and warding off violent threats to a peaceful transfer of power — a role that led Nelson Mandela to embrace him and appoint him to the country’s highest court.

Actually the de Klerk government, with Mandela’s support, began the shepherding of South Africa to democratic transition, much to the consternation of Afrikaaner hard-liners who wanted to hold out towards the end. And Goldstone’s sorry role was part and parcel of his now documented opportunism.

Scores of other white judges, professionals, doctors and lawyers opposed to apartheid left South Africa, preferring exile to raising their children in the confines of an inhuman oppressive state which they opposed. Goldstone, however, stayed in South Africa during apartheid and its aftermath, putting career first and serving both masters — Botha and his successors and later Mandela — allowing himself to rise in the ranks of the judiciary and to render decisions serving the interests first of apartheid and later of the ANC.

Second, Palakow-Suransky pulls a clever trick — that of conflating the actions of a state, however morally questionable, with the actions of an individual who can take a moral position and oppose and question the actions of a government in which he lives. Polakow-Suransky brings up the well known fact that in the 1970s through the 1990s, Israel was an arms supplier to the apartheid government in South Africa. The author writes that this military aid “did far more to aid the apartheid regime than Goldstone ever did.”

The truth is that all governments have and do make alliances of necessity that many find objectionable. There were plenty of people in and outside Israel who criticized this policy at the time. Others argued that Israel’s enemies themselves made unsavory alliances. Indeed, the ANC and the African liberation movements as a whole supported the most pro-Soviet and totalitarian states including the Soviet Union, as well as corrupt African and Arab regimes that gave them support. No one’s hands were entirely clean at the time.

None of this can serve as an excuse for the actions of Judge Goldstone, who could have used his position to rule against apartheid when it might have helped destroy it, or could have with many of his contemporaries gone into exile in protest. Instead, he stayed in the judiciary, first serving the apartheid regime and then shifting as the tides turned to support the ANC. Obviously, career and power was his first concern.

In Polakow-Suransky’s eyes, there is nothing that anyone should apologize for, except the state of Israel. That, of course, is precisely the thrust of the Goldstone Report. The logic is that of the political left world-wide, and this blogger at Foreign Policy does not depart from it.

The truth about Goldstone, whatever rationales people come up for him, is now out. No wonder that this week, the judge is most probably not a very content man.

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78 Comments, 27 Threads

1.
Johnboy

Odd, isn’t it, that in this blizzard of quotes condemning Goldstone’s judicial record in South Africa there is… not one name from South Africa.

You’d think that if Goldstone was a “hanging judge” for the Apartheid era then there’d be plenty of past victims of Apartheid who would be willing to stand up and dump on the man.

So who do you have doing that dumping?
Errr, well, Dersowitz.
And, um, Goldberg.
Ahhh, well, you.

None of whom are South African, and all of whom are rather open (wide open, I’d suggest) to accusations of a hidden agenda.

Why don’t you go searching for some quotes from the VICTIMS of Apartheid, and see what they have to say about the man?

Oh, look, Yglesias appears to have given that radical idea some thought, and he comes up with the astonishing suggestion that the VICTIMS of Apartheid actually hold Goldstone’s aggitation from the bench in high regard.

Which is hardly surprising, since he struck some VERY heavy blows against the Apartheid laws when he was serving on the bench.

“Why don’t you go searching for some quotes from the VICTIMS of Apartheid, and see what they have to say about the man?”

Many of these victims are now radical leftists and the greater cause dominates their thoughts and actions. Does Richard Goldstone help them achieve the goals of the here and now? If so, his past deeds will be conveniently ignored. Nothing should get in the way of bringing about a utopian socialist society. Goldstone’s alleged vile actions will only be of concern when he is no longer useful—or angers someone in power.

Then you are left in the rather ludicrous position of working yourself up into a lather over Goldstone’s “victimization” of South African blacks EVEN AS those same alleged victims tell you to go Get A Life.

And that DOESN’T make you question wether your righteous anger might not be a weeee bit at odds with, you know, reality?

DT: “Goldstone’s alleged vile actions will only be of concern when he is no longer useful—or angers someone in power.”

Riiiiiight. So you have convinced yourself that the blacks of South Africa really do seeth with the same righteous anger that you feel for Goldstone, only they have decided to Hide It Well For Reasons Of Their Own.

Riiiiiight.

Here’s an alternative; the blacks of South Africa aren’t making the same song and dance that you are because THEY understand – and appreciate – what Goldstone was doing when he was on the South African bench, and so they aren’t much interested in being the hapless tools for your attempt at a hatchet job.

There are over 30 million blacks in South Africa.
It shouldn’t be that hard for you guys to find one who is willing to pour the bucket on Richard Goldstone.

And yet, apparently, you can’t find one. How odd.

Perhaps you aren’t looking?

And, just perhaps, you aren’t looking because you know what you will find.

Becasue that IS the problem that you face i.e. Goldstone’s reputation is highest in the very place where it should be in the toilet, and that suggests to me that it’s you guys who are wrong, and not those 30 million South Africans.

“Now every single black in S. Africa, even those who weren’t born during the era of apartheid, is now a victim of Goldstone and an expert on his behavior during that time and since.”

Straw Man.

I pointed out that there are 30 million blacks in South Africa, and if Richard Goldstone was the despicably racist hanging judge that you are now claiming him to be then it is *very* hard to believe that this nation of 30 million blacks would simply shrug their shoulders and keep their peace.

Yet they are, unquestionably, shrugging their shoulders and keeping their peace.
Every single one of them.
Not a peep out of any of them.
Nada.
Zip.
Zero.

Here are two possible explanations:
1) 30 million blacks are too scared of a little Jewish guy to speak out against him, or
2) the accusation that he was a despicably racist hanging judge is w.r.o.n.g.

“As soon as the situation began to shift, and it was clear apartheid was about to fall and the ANC win, Goldstone shifted his stance and suddenly became an ANC partisan-also ruling against its opponents who wanted to expose the ANC’s own reign of torture against would-be dissidents.”

That statement does appear to be nothing but pontification, which is fine if you happen to be a Pontiff but is rather less excusable if you pretend to be a journalist.

“Its criticism is addressed exclusively to Israel, and it lets Hamas off the hook for its very documented war crimes. ”

I will be charitable here and suggest that you have not actually read the Goldstone Report, because if you had then you would have seen that Yglesias is quite correct: Goldstone definitely said that Hamas and IJ committed war crimes both before and during Operation Cast Lead.

Criticizing Goldstone for being an apartheidist is wrong, stupid, and self-defeating. The state of Israel proved a much bigger friend of apartheid than a single judge could be. Radosh skips the points that Israel’s support of apartheid was of 2 major purposes : (1) Money without conscience for arms sales & training of a vicious police state; (2) a deeper understanding of what works and doesn’t in running an apartheid state, you know, the kind that the Likud is desirous of in Israel.

The people I support are the many, many Jews who understand that peace and stability can only come from a proper and humane 2-state solution. Likudniks are clearly antithetical to this goal, driven by religious and political foolishness (not unlike Arafats’ heirs on the other side). Likudniks’ attitudes toward Palestinians are very similar to those of the Boers toward Blacks. Hence, Israel’s strong support of the former South Africa in these dark, murky ways. I’m sorry for you that the truth hurts.

Peace will only come to the middle east when the palestinians decide they are willing to live in peace with the Jews. The Israeli’s have tried time and again to have peace, only to be attacked when the timing was convenient.

The fact that you blame the Jews for not making peace with people who are still actively trying to kill them, says all I need to know about you.

Seems that you deliberately ignored my critique of Arafat and his heirs who were/are obstacles to a peaceful 2-state solution. Both sides are curse by bad leaders; that’s clear enough. Even so, your preferred path is leading to an Apartheid State of Israel. Good luck with the inherent contradictions it creates in Jews’ sense of superior religiousness, honor, and self-righteousness. Becoming an Occupier has degraded the Israeli military, too, as is well known in Israel itself. And, by the way, how did that apartheid thing work out for S. Africa?

“The truth is that all governments have and do make alliances of necessity that many find objectionable.”

As an African-American and a supporter of Israel who was opposed to Apartheid, I think you need to say much more with regard to Israel’s support of apartheid South Africa. It may be the case that governments make alliances of necessity but what you haven’t done here is to explain what necessitated that alliance.

It’s not as though South Africa’s proximity to the Middle East made it a valuable strategic partner for Israel. Perhaps Israel found it useful economically and/or militarily to share nuclear technology with SA; perhaps there were other reasons.

But if Israel’s ties to SA require no further defense than an appeal too some undefined necessity, than Goldstone’s choices can be defended in the same way. He did what he thought was best at that time.

I see what you mean. By sending 28 blacks to hang high while acquitting whites for similar crimes he was just doing his job of protecting Afrikaners and punishing those bloody Keffers who needed to be put in their place!

You Goldstone hangers-on will justify the very worst in human nature if it supports your rosy world view. Utterly contemptible!

“By sending 28 blacks to hang high while acquitting whites for similar crimes ”

There is no evidence of Goldstone acquitting whites for similar crimes.

Certainly nowhere in this article; the nearest you have is this “He imposed and affirmed death sentences for more than two dozen blacks under circumstances where whites would almost certainly have escaped the noose.”

The weasel-words are “would almost certainly”, which is a tacit admission that the claim lies entirely in the realm of the hypothetical.

You need to be on the lookout for such propaganda ploys. They really are quite easy to spot, but only if you make the effort to look at the words, rather than to simply “feel the vibes”.

Johnboy, dont you know another tune? Stop your distasteful babblings. you are full of it, or you are severely handicapped.
STOP DODGING.
Dershowitz is showing the world how to defend the Jewish cause from “wise men” like you.
GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE

I’ll note that this comment from eran isn’t actually an attempt at a rebuttal.

“Bit out of date though.”

That isn’t either.

“I’ve seen it somewhere.”

Nor is that.

“Go on, keep making a fool of yourself all over the place.”

Nope, still nothin’.

“You’re a lot of fun!”

Sooooo, when I pointed out that Dershowitz “defends the Jewish cause” by attacking the messenger – while scrupulously avoiding the message – my friend eran responds with five sentences that follow the Dershowitz-Doctrine to the letter…..

I’ll note that this comment from eran isn’t actually an attempt at a rebuttal.

“Bit out of date though.”

That isn’t either.

“I’ve seen it somewhere.”

Nor is that.

“Go on, keep making a fool of yourself all over the place.”

Nope, still nothin’.

“You’re a lot of fun!”

Sooooo, when I pointed out that Dershowitz “defends the Jewish cause” by attacking the messenger – while scrupulously avoiding the message – my friend eran responds with five sentences that follow the Dershowitz-Doctrine to the letter…..

How depressingly predictable.”–

Whatever,Hominem or hominus

Dershowitz is showing the world how to defend the Jewish cause from “wise men” like you.
GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE

“Dershowitz is showing the world how to defend the Jewish cause from “wise men” like you.”

1) Dershowitz shows the world that the defence of choice against anyone who dares to criticize Israel is an ad hominem attack upon the individual.
2) The term “defend the Jewish cause” is a meaningless buzzword.

After all, more Jews live outside Israel than inside it.

It therefore stands to reason that the Israeli government can not claim to speak on behalf of “the Jews” i.e. an “Israeli policy” is not automatically a “Jewish cause”.

“GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE”

Again, a meaningless term: Goldstone’s job was to determine if the accused was guilty of the crime for which they were accused, as all judges are obliged to do.

That duty – and it is a duty, not an optional extra – doesn’t change merely because the charge is “murder” and the punishment for “murder” is mandatory death by hanging.

You would prefer that Goldstone had let murder’s go free because he doesn’t agree with the death sentence? Fine, your preferences are your own, but consider: such an action would be a dereliction of duty for any judge, not just Goldstone.

You nailed that one…and I’ll never understand why, people being people, so many non-whites act as they do, after shaking their fists over the last 50 years at the real and imagined transgressions of “whitey.”

You’d think they’d seize the opportunity to demonstrate how life is to be lived in the best manner possible, modestly accepting our admiration for such impressive success and wonderfully mannered children.

Many primitive tribes still exist in Africa and parts of Australia. Why is that? Why? Whey did these people end up mentally retarded and lost in their own world of meager survival and why didn’t they evolve with the rest of us?

Would the “African-Americans” of the USA had the same fate if not for being brought here as slaves?

Look at Haiti? They still have voodoo for frick’s sake.

I dunno ’bout you, but any black who is an American should be feeling damned lucky they ARE and get the frick over their ancestral grief which includes being sold by their own brethren.

At the same time that Israel had some relationship with official South Africa it was also hosting Walter Sisulu of the ANC, so if anything it wasn’t a case of siding with White South Africa but of existing with amongst other things a boycott where even Coca Cola couldn’t be marketed in Israel.

That’s right. Goldstone sentenced blacks to hang high for crimes that he would have allowed whites to receive only a slap on the wrist. He was just doing his job protecting white Afrikaners while keeping those bloody K-ff-rs (Afrikaans equivalent of the N-word) in their place.

“Goldstone sentenced blacks to hang high for crimes that he would have allowed whites to receive only a slap on the wrist.”

That claim is certainly wrong: death by hanging was a mandatory sentence for the crime of murder i.e. if Goldstone found ANYONE guilty of committing murder then it’s off to the gallows for them, regardless of wether they were black, white, yellow, or mauve.

He would not have had any say in it, because there was no discretionary powers granted to judges to “slap murders on the wrist” i.e. if you were found guilty of murder then you swung from a gibbet.

Israel has been a lonely state without allies, or friends, from the day it was established. It was always looking for friends, being surrounded by mortal enemies and quite isolated. In the 1960′s it had close relations with some african nations but the fact that the Soviet union was bitterly anti-Israel and a close ally of the “progressive” arab regimes (such as Egypt’s and Syria) made it difficult to develope relations with the black African countries. Many of these developing nations identified with progressive, “third world” and indeed socialistic ideas and looked for Soviet aid and ideology.
Thus Israel’s relations with South Africa was borne from its isolation. But it should be stressed that Israel always condemned the Apartheid regime. It did what the ANC did later: it said simply that while we do business with SA we do not intervene in its internal affairs.
On the other hand Goldstone’s conduct is oppotunistic and immoral through and through.

First let me say that I never supported Apartheid and that, in my opinion, the Goldstone report is heavily biased against Israel. Also that I don’t support the death penalty.

There are a few of facts that need to be clarified.
1 Those sentenced to death by Goldstone were common criminals and not political activists. On occasion Goldstone commented in his findings that he was compelled to apply the law
2 The legal system in South Africa mandated what the sentence had to be for a given crime
3 These sentences were politically driven especially during the ‘State of Emmergency’ that existed during the 70′s and 80′s
4 Many judges in South Africa were strongly opposed to the Apartheid system and would indicate that they had no option but to apply the sentence when doing so especially when it was the death penalty. Many indicated that they felt that they could fight the unfair system better from within.
5 A group of anti-Apartheid judges publicly critisized the government, at a time when the State security agencies were extremeely powerful, in a statement released to the press – I can’t remember who they were, but I think Goldstone might have been one of them
6 There is no way that Mandela and the ANC would have appointed him to the Constitutional Court if he had been regarded as an Apartheid supporter, in fact his credentials would have had to be that of an anti-Apartheid activist.
7 Israel and South Africa had decades of adverse world opinion, and South Africa had a very large and wealthy Jewish population; so they became natural allies and were involved in many combined miltary and arms development projects.

Personally I think Richard Goldstone is an honorable man who has unfortunatley lost his perspective in the report in his attempt to rule out any bias that could be levelled against him because of his religion.

I can’t say I disagree or agree with the thesis or its conclusion. This one of the most poorly sourced, data free things I’ve read in my life. Really, if its so important for you to lower the boom on Goldstone, then try using original sources concerning both his activities as a judge in apartheid south africa and his relationship with the ANC. This pathetic dribble doesn’t even rise to the level of hearsay.

Exactly so. After all, Nelson Mandela is in quiet retirement, so I’m sure he has plenty of time for reminiscing; maybe Radosh can find the time to fire off a quick letter to the Old Man and ask him what he thought about Richard Goldstone’s time on the bench.

Or perhaps ask some post-apartheid judges what they thought of Goldstone’s Apartheid-era rulings.

The usual leftists can do no wrong. Only they have a heart and how can anyone with rightist ideology possibly understand. It’s okay to ignore the greed or egotism of leftists, because of course they’re doing it all for worthy causes.
The leftist media gives them a pass and doesn’t hold them accountable.

First, we have comments from Matthew Yglesias, who says that he’s “inclined to give [Goldstone] a pass.” Why? Because the African National Congress (ANC) “always seemed to regard Goldstone as credible.”

Ron,
Here’s a link to a pdf document which on page 9 has an article about the Goldstone Commission in South Africa in the early 90s, before Independence from the Apartheid regime, to judge the political violence in which some 15,000 people diedGoldstone damaged South Africa as well
<blockquoteGoldstone’s failings on the
Gaza dispute have been widely
criticised, undermining the
credibility of his report and lim-
iting the damage it might other-
wise have done. But Goldstone’s
failings on political violence in
South Africa, though similar in
many ways, have never been
acknowledged.
Instead, they have long helped
the ANC conceal its role in vio-
lence and attain a moral stature
that is richly undeserved.

This written by Dr. Anthea Jeffrey, head of special research at The South African Institute of Race Relations.
So, maybe the ANC owed Goldstone a favour?

For those who query the apparent lack of South Africans criticizing Goldstone’s Apartheid Crusade

“This written by Dr. Anthea Jeffrey, head of special research at The South African Institute of Race Relations.”

It’s also published in something called the “South African Jewish Report”.

It hasn’t occured to you that a publication called the “SA Jewish Report” is not likely to favour dispassionate or objective reportage on the subject of Richard Goldstone?

“So, maybe the ANC owed Goldstone a favour?”

And, just maybe, the “SA Jewish Report” decided that it had to play its part in an orchestated campaign to discredit Richard Goldstone?

“For those who query the apparent lack of South Africans criticizing Goldstone’s Apartheid Crusade”

Here’s another query: why are the ONLY South Africans who criticize Goldstone all Jewish, and why did that only start to voice their concerns post-2009?

Because, of course, if you are:
(a) South African and
(b) Jewish and
(c) your criticism of Goldstone only started AFTER the Gaza report came out then
(c) any criticism you do make is rather susceptible to accusations of a “hidden agenda”.

There are 49 million South Africans, and only 75,000 are Jewish.
But the South Africans who are criticizing Goldstone all-but-exclusively come from that small pool.
And out of THOSE the number who voiced concerns PRIOR to 2009 could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, if that.

Johnboy, you have a pathetic explanation repeated in half of the talkbacks here about Goldstein’s apartheid past.Your answers are so complex that they reach the absurd. Let it go. it doesnt stick whatever you do.
To me, it simply means in short with “I followed orders”.
Dershowitz is showing the world how to defend the Jewish cause.
GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE

If Goldstone had wronged the blacks of South Africa then it is the blacks of South Africa who have the grudge against Goldstone, yet it is inescapably true that they display no sign of holding a grudge against Goldstone.

It is equally true that the ONLY people who claim that they are outraged by his Apratheid-era rulings are ALSO those who are outraged by his findings against the IDF.

It ain’t that difficult to connect the dots i.e. this zionist-led outrage is a put-on that has nothing to do with his time on the South African bench and everything do with a need to smear the man in order to discredit his Gaza report.

Now, YOU and Radash can keep on pretending otherwise.

Fine. Go ahead. Be my guest.
Delude yourself to your heart’s content.

But don’t express outrage when someone else connects those dots, because doing THAT insults everyone’s intelligence.

Johnboy, dont you know another tune? Stop your distasteful babblings. you are full of it, or you are severely handicapped.
Dershowitz is showing the world how to defend the Jewish cause from “wise men” like you.
GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE

I shouldn’t be as astonished as I am at this disgusting and ridiculous ad hominem campaign against Judge Goldstone. Nothing, apparently, is too vile for Zionist propagandists. Radosh has turned away from the Old Left, but he kept the vicious polemical style. Notice we have no analysis of the actual cases that Judge Goldstone tried.

Israel in Gaza is a monstrous and continuing war crime. That’s the fact. Character assassination wouldn’t change it even if it were true. It isn’t true. Just vile.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I have **NO** problems with Israeli soldiers firing at someone that they see setting up a qassam ready to fire in the general direction of Israel.

I have **NO** problem with that **AT** **ALL**, because that is a perfectly justifiable response e.g. if one of those bottle rockets lands on somebody’s head it’d kill them.

But be honest, Mark; these are bottle-rockets with zero accuracy, a propellent of sugar and fertilizer, and a “warhead” that amounts to 500gm of gunpowder i.e. they’ll ruin your day if it hit you, they’d punch a hole in your roof if it hit your house, and they’ll make a pothole in a road that your wouldn’t even notice.

They certainly ArE the “weapons of mass destruction” version of a slap in the face with a feather duster, and they simply aren’t worthy of a massive response that leaves 1,400 people dead.

You believe otherwise, and good for you, because Israel obviously believes otherwise too. But don’t bleet about it if the UN doesn’t agree with you, because it’s their JOB not to agree to that sort of over-the-top vengeance-is-mine smite-mine-enemy bullshit.

The UN believes in “defending yourself”, but it doesn’t believe in “let’s go all monkey-shit on ‘em to teach ‘em a lesson”, and I happen to agree with the UN on that score.

“Raining rockets down on your neigbors is the equivalent of slapping them in the face.”

I would suggest that raining bombs that have warheads with HUNDREDS of kilograms of Tritonal is Very Much More that a slap in the face.

But raining rockets that are made of iron pipe, and which uses sugar and fertilizer for fuel, and whose warhead is measured in GRAMS og bog-standard TNT is the military equivalent of waving a feather duster in front of your face.

A qassam that lands on your head will kill you, sure. But the chances of it landing on your head is pretty damn slim.
A qassam that lands on the roof of your house will let the rain in, sure. But the chances of it landing on your rook is pretty damn slim.
A qassam that lands in the middle of a road will make a pothole, sure. But the chances of you telling that apart from any other pothole is pretty damn slim.

But a 1,000kg bomb dropped from an F-16i will not only ruin your day; it’ll ruin the day of everyone else within a city block.

Look, Mark, I have *no* problem with the IDF shooting at a militant who is setting up a qassam. No. Problem. Whatsover.

But you need to have a sense of proportion; the destructive power of ALL the qassams ever launched would struggle to equal the destructive power of the payload of a single F-16i.

“Israel in Gaza is a monstrous and continuing war crime.” So Israel pulls out of Gaza at the risk of civil war, and currently has no troops there — but they are somehow engaged in a continuing war crime. What an absurd comment. What is the crime — policing its own borders? Egypt does the exact same on the other side of Gaza, but you don’t care about that, do you? Indeed, most countries police their own borders — I guess in your view most countries are engaged in “continuing war crime” on that same basis. But I am sure your singling out of Israel isn’t anti-semitism — its just anti-Israel hogwash, right? When you treat Israel like any other country (I wouldn’t expect better treatment — but not worse) then your condemnation — illogical thought it might be — might be worthy of consideration. But for now it is clear that it is just bigoted tripe.

There were many judges who stood up to the leaders of the apartheid regime. One such, Judge Anton Mostert and an Afrikaaner, lost his job as a result of revealing the clandestine operations – revelations that were later called the “Muldergate Scandal”. In the autumn of 1978 the South African Prime Minister asked the young and ambitious Mostert to keep his sensational findings secret but Mostert refused and sacrificed his career as a judge. I often met with Mostert at the time and he didn’t seem embittered by what happened to him. He had served the cause of justice and doing the right things was more important to him.

Johnboy, don’t you know another tune? Stop your distasteful babblings. you are full of it, or you are severely handicapped.
DONT GET AWAY FROM THE REAL SUBJECT
Dershowitz is showing the world how to defend the Jewish cause from “wise men” like you.
GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE

Why is Dershowitz’s freedom of expression less then others. Why is their criticism of him OK, but his criticism of them not? Why are his comments incitement and their’s not? History departments have never been big on logic or logical consistency.
Yes, GOLDSTONE IS THE HANGING JUDGE
Nobody can deny it.

“Johnboy apparently doesn’t feel that there is anything wrong with palestinians killing Jews. But equally apparent is that he feels that Jews defending themselves is the worst crime in the world.”

The shallowness of your posts is, honestly, quite breathtaking.

Jews = Israel.
Israel = Jews.

Everything that Israel does it does in the name of “the Jews”.
Any action Israel takes can be justified in the name of “the Jews”.
Every criticism of Israel is an attack upon “the Jews”.

Here’s a tip, Mark: every time you type in the word “Jew” just pause for a second (and it’d only take a second) and ask yourself this simple question..
Q: Do I really mean “Jew”, or should I actually be using the word “Israel”?

Because, so sorry Mark, you do appear to have a great deal of trouble distinguishing between the two, and that’s why your posts are so laughably shallow.

South Africa? Spare me. They were one of the cruelest as long as you pretend that Nazi, Communist, KMT, Fascist et al regimes didn’t exist.

The Apartheid regime in South Africa was about as bad as American Democrats. Scumbags to be sure…but, by no means anywhere near as bad as other regimes.

As for Goldstone and the U.N. I couldn’t care less what they say. The Israelis are killing Pal terrorists and smashing the Pal terror state? Good. The more, the better. Too bad we’re not helping them bomb Gaza off the face of the planet a la Hiroshima.

ok Johnboy, you object to Cast Lead because it was ‘disproportionate’. Let’s forget the adhoms and the useless ideological arguments. i’ll also assume that you agree that Israel has the right to defend itself. So let’s look practically at the argument that Israel’s response should be proportionate. To my mind, that is just a recipe for maintaining the violence since the Palestinians will do some nasty things and Israel will respond with their own nasty things without either side giving up. So what is the solution? Practically, I think the solution must be that the Palestinians must be made to realize that they have lost and cannot win. They must be brought to the point where they surrender unconditionally. It is only then that both sides can move on.